During the third quarter, analysts lowered earnings estimates for companies in the S&P 500 for the quarter. The Q3 bottom-up EPS estimate (which is an aggregation of the median EPS estimates for all the companies in the index) has dropped by 1.1% (to $40.54 from $41.00) during this period. How significant is a 1.1% decline in the bottom-up EPS estimate during a quarter? How does this decrease compare to recent quarters?
